Doula Revolution – Doulas At Birth

It seems that the Doula movement is going full steam ahead in Australia and the popularity of the Doula (also known as a Birth Attendant) is booming by word of mouth advertising. It seems that women love having Doulas at their birth and are encouraging each other to try them.

So what are Doulas? Well, the word ‘Doula’ comes from ancient Greece. The Doula was a female slave of the house who was particularly experienced in supporting childbirth. While the modern day Doula is not exactly a slave, she is a woman who will ‘slave over you’ to help you to achieve the best birth possible and oooh!, don’t we all need that.

Doulas generally provide:

• Information for the pregnant woman and her partner
• Suggestions based on relevant evidence to assist with making healthcare decisions
• Unbiased discussion of the woman and her partner’s concerns
• Assistance for the woman to develop a comprehensive birthing plan
• Emotional and physical support
• All comfort measures required by the labouring woman during birth and the immediate post-partum period.

The modern Doula gets to know the woman and her partner during pregnancy and helps them to build their birthing plan. The Doula will loan her client videos, books and articles and will help her to practice relaxation, visualisation and birth positions during her visits to the client’s house. The Doula never advises but she listens and discusses different ideas with the client and is always ready to help find a good balanced source of information.

When the client goes into labour, the Doula meets her at the hospital or home (if the client is having a homebirth). The Birth Doula stays with her client and the client’s partner throughout the labour, providing lots of physical and emotional support to the two of them. They will work endlessly at massaging a woman’s back, feet, bottom or brow for ten hours if needed or they will work on one leg while the partner works on the other. Doulas might use heat packs and aroma and music and darkness and many many more strategies for protecting the woman’s ‘space’ in order to allow her to birth her baby in her own way.

Doulas DO NOT provide any medical observations and do not make comments on these even if she has other training that enables her to do so. This includes:

• Listening to the foetal heart
• Taking blood pressure measurements
• Taking the client’s temperature
• Performing any examinations

Doulas are self effacing. They become as steady as a rock if the client needs physical support and then melt away into the background when the woman has no need of them. For the Doula, the woman takes ‘centre stage’ and the Doula is the prop, or the resting place, attuned to the woman’s needs, ready to serve.

Doulas are energised by the process of labour because they are women who are drawn to the birth process and because of this they never seem to tire. I think Doulas are natural to birth. I’m sure a great many ordinary women have felt drawn to supporting birthing women since the beginnings of humanity… these are Doulas… but when the focus of birth went into the hospital system these women were no longer able to offer their support.

I truly believe that the work of a Doula is a vocation that many women have. I also believe that the Doula is essential to birth. This is not because I run a Doula course, it is why I run a Doula course. I have been a midwife for many years and when I first heard about the Doula I was horrified to think that virtually untrained women where ‘sneaking’ in to the birthing ‘arena’. Lots of midwives today still feel this. However, I think we are in danger of overstepping the mark in this because birth belongs to all women… not just those who have trained for years as midwives and if midwives monopolise birth they are in danger of doing the self same thing that some medical professionals have consistently tried to do to midwifery.

Part of the problem with the medicalisation of childbirth was the weakening of the role of the midwife. However, a bigger problem was the divorce of ordinary women from helping each other during the birth process. This created generations of childbirth disabled women… women who had never been near a birthing woman and who feared the process of childbirth, women who still believe they need medical interventions for birthing their babies.

The Doula is the ordinary woman who is reclaiming her place besides other ordinary women who are birthing their babies. It is true – she now has the advantage of undertaking a short training to gain insight and skills but she remains an ordinary woman.

For me the proof for the need of the Doula lies with birthing women if they find them invaluable at their births then they will continue to ask for them.

This article was written by Dr. Chris Vose (Doctor, Midwife and Doula), who has been a midwife for over 20 years and is also trained as a teacher. She is the Director of Optimum Birth. For more information please visit http://www.optimumbirth.com.

BellyBelly offers Birth Support Services, you can read about BellyBelly Birth Support here.